Far and Long Gone By
by PoetTraveler
Summary: It's after 'When Worlds Collide.' Life continues on.


A/N – This is something that I got in my head and wrote rather quickly. A reaction piece to 'When Worlds Collide.'

* * *

**_Everything is far_**

_**and long gone by.**_

**_I think that the star _**

**_glittering above me has been dead for a million years._**

_-Lament, Rainer Maria Rilke_

* * *

He sits in his car and wishes that the things in the world were black and white, wishes for a moment that there is a right and a wrong answer. That life would be more than pass-fail. But then most times it seems that he is more wrong than right and then it feels that charcoal gray is a comfortable place to be.

He wishes that there is something concrete that he can grasp because he's losing time, he's losing people. _His mother, Nikki Davis, Kim Hall, Billy Cooper, Terry Lake, Leah Wexford, Liz Warner, Megan Reeves…_ The list goes on, if he cares to count. If they don't die, then they say goodbye. And he's not sure he can say that anymore.

_Once Charlie tells him that he's worried that he and Amita can only find mathematical common ground. He tells him later that they found that it's okay because math is everything and what can be more beautiful than that?_

There was a time when he would spend most of his free time eating take-out and watching _Sullivan's Travels._ He appreciates the irony of a movie that shows the importance of laughter when his life deals mostly with death. (His baser nature appreciates the importance of Veronica Lake and the scene by the pool when her leg slips from under her robe.)

It has been awhile since he's done that. He's spent more and more time over the years playing air hockey with his brother and golf with his father. But when the prosecution hands him a subpoena to testify at his brother's trial, he thinks of Joel McCrea and his mistaken imprisonment and wonders for the first time in years if he should consider some offers he's had outside of LA.

Instead, he finds himself at another familiar doorway and leaves a lot more there than a simple hair clip.

_Robin is sweet and is beginning to feel more like home than any other woman he's ever known. She hordes watermelon candy in her nightstand and works as much as he does. They start catching more of the same cases and that feels right too. He wonders if they'll last, wonders if a proposal would jinx what they have._

_Wonders if he could take another 'Dear John.'_

oOo

It's three weeks after Megan left for the East when he realizes that Larry Fleinhardt has shown up just as often as he had when Megan was there to wheedle an extra cup of coffee (which Don knows he doesn't like) or an invitation to lunch (which is strangely touching) and since Charlie _can't_ come down to the FBI anymore, Don thinks his little brother's sent someone who can.

_He somehow thinks that the truth is much closer to the odd kinship that he and Larry share, the unworkable workings that the professor's mentioned before, the ones that neither of them seem to know what to do with._

Alan pins him down for a family dinner seventeen days after his little brother's arrest. (He says that often, gets the words out and even though he was there, still has a hard time believing that _Charlie_ was the Eppes brother hauled away in cuffs.) Before he goes, Don brings calla lilies to his mother's grave and tells her how proud she should feel that her husband and son have matching FBI arrest records.

The water that teases down his chin is from the sprinklers he tells himself. He thinks about the first real case that Charlie cut his teeth on, about how his help got them there in time to save Haldane's last victim.

_Single-serving friends are common enough in his life. Charlie seemed to think they had a good run. Maybe they have. And maybe that's enough._

At dinner that night, Alan does most of the talking. He mentions a new housing project in Altadena and a go-cart track up in Northridge. Don finds him self nodding along as Charlie goes on about refractive indices and something or other. There is nothing for him to offer since his life the past few weeks has been _classified_, off-limits to those awaiting trial.

It pains him every time he thinks that.

_He knows that math is enough to keep Charlie and Amita's relationship. He's not sure if he and Charlie will find something neutral and non-volatile that will save theirs._

oOo

Last year, Don was pouring over interrogation tapes of one of his own. Studied every nuance, doubted and double-checked every premonition he had about Granger. This year, he stares across the cubicle to watch Colby phone over two hundred owners of red Honda Civics with license plates starting with 7GH.

He wonders what another year will bring and what else will change.

_And if he continues the thought with black humor, who else will be arrested. And who else will survive._

oOo

Megan calls him on a Thursday night while Robin is hunched over her opening statement for court the next morning. She tells him how things are going: her classes are interesting, the counseling is as difficult as she thought and the only thing she complains about is how the humidity is ruining her hair.

Don laughs at the idea of cool, collected Megan Reeves with a 'fro and then the conversation (really mostly teasing) somehow drifts onto the more serious. He tells her of Larry following him around like a puppy and she tears up a little and tells him of how he's considering a guest lecture slot back at Princeton for the fall. She asks him about Charlie and Alan and Don mutters something non-descript and perfectly vague.

The words slowly peter out and he says his reluctant goodbye because he still doesn't like that he has to replace her and talking with her makes it that much more real.

_He's been going through resumes for days now and he feels old, older than he ever has before and thinks its only just a matter of time before this all comes to a head. _

After he hangs up, Robin curls on his lap and reads the deposition like a bedtime story. (She does voices and tickles his forearm till he laughs.) Don doesn't pay attention to the particulars, but he does to her voice, the way her fingers thread through his, the way their legs tangle together. The way the papers fall from her hands as she chooses him over court particulars.

He breathes in her hair, the way her lips feel pressed against his. Don knows that he has stumbled on an important moment in his life and he'll be damned if he doesn't memorize the way the candles flicker and the feel of Robin's hands in his hair.

He thinks of that Dire Straights song and thinks this whole thing could have been loaded from the moment they reignited their romance in that hotel room. That they're betting on a tired horse and are just as screwed as Romeo and Juliet. They've been both burned enough to know that it's quite possibly forever that they want.

Don keeps losing people. But he'll do whatever he can to hold on to this.


End file.
